Gingerbread
by Flying Pyro of Doom
Summary: A fluffy,tiny fic . The triplets discover a gingerbread house, and don't understand what it's for. Remember children, Gingerbread men are NOT sentient.
1. Gingerbread House

Finding unusual things in the Trancy Manor was nothing new. The triplets had long ago stopped questioning when strange objects appeared, seemingly overnight. This habit was broken one Christmas season when they walked into the banquet hall only to find a small but ornate house made entirely out of cookie sitting on the table. None of them could understand the use of such a thing, and thought it best to investigate. As they peered into every delicate sugar window and opened the gingerbread door, they found not a soul residing in the cookie house. They exchanged glances, and all agreed. If people lived in houses, then tiny cookie people had to live in tiny cookie houses. There were no tiny, delicious people in this house. That meant that they were somewhere in the manor, probably leaving a trail of chaos and cookie crumbs. The triplets knew exactly what they had to do, and quickly began their preparations to capture the scrumptious little men.

They began their search in the banquet hall, but were quickly discovered by Claude. He'd noticed that nothing had been done around the manor for a long while, and had gone to investigate. They explained to him with a series of glances and gestures about their hunt for the cookie men. He sighed heavily, brought the three to the kitchen, and gestured to Timber's baking schedule. 'Gingerbread Men" was printed neatly at the top of the list. Claude then explained that Alois had declared he wanted a gingerbread house, which he had already prepared. He did not have time for the other cookies, as today was December twenty-first, and there was just too much to be done. That meant that the job would be passed on to the cook.

"And in conclusion, the gingerbread men are not sentient. Do you understand?"

The three nodded, and were ushered off to do something more productive then search for conscious gingerbread men.


	2. Alois Trancy: Cookie Warrior

Thompson, Timber and Cantebury were still wary of the cookie people. After Timber had baked the human shaped dough he tucked all of the cookies safely away, and would only decorate them one at a time. It was silly that they made him nervous, and he knew it. After all, he was a demon, and demons ate humans anyway. So people shaped cookies shouldn't have bothered him, but there was just something about them that unsettled him. He had to ignore the sense of dread that lurked over him as he decorated each little person to individuality. Claude had already explained that they weren't alive, and he didn't doubt it. That still didn't change Timber's feelings towards them.

After some time and with a little work, he finished the final cookie and placed it on the platter with all the others. Once he had finished, he placed a cover over the plate, gathered his siblings, and went to serve his master. Alois was sitting at the table in the banquet hall, with the gingerbread house in front of him. His butler was standing a respectful three feet from his master. Timber set the tray on the table and backed away to stand with his brothers. Alois was overjoyed to see the tiny men, and immediately grabbed up two and began walking them around the table, as if they were little dolls. He played and played for a bit, hoping to get at least a comment from Claude.

He never got one, and so quickly switched battle plans. He set one of the cookie men back down on the tray, and dangled the other by the foot. He tormented it for quite a while, swinging it back and forth by its frosted foot. He mumbled something to the tiny man, and quickly bit the poor thing's head off. Alois then went back to playing with the mutilated little cookie, making it walk around the house and mumbling to it more. After a few more moments of playing 'zombie cookie' he noticed the triplets watching him from the other side of the room.

"What? Do you want something?" They didn't respond, which only infuriated him more. "Do you want a cookie or something? Here, have it!" he tossed the injured little cookie at their feet, and it shattered. Cantebury quickly cleaned up the mess, and the three of them left the room.

The triplets were no longer afraid of the tiny cookie men. They had learned that day that if any armies of sentient sweets ever came their way, Alois Trancy would be the best weapon they could ever find.


	3. Closing Windows is a Good Thing

"I hate the cold."

It was the only thing that Alois Trancy could be heard saying from the day after New Years all the way to May. He was NOT designed for freezing weather, and was happy to let everyone and anyone in on this little fact every chance he got. His servants were sadly not exempt from this routine.

Though Claude and Hannah had to put up with almost all of it, the brothers got their fair share of Alois' winter grumps thrown their way. Of the three, Cantebury got the worst thanks to his direct contact with their master.

Cantebury was sweeping the floor of the main hall when Alois came sprinting down the stairs. He was wrapped up in a cocoon made up of six different blankets all bundled up around his shoulders. Cantebury found it best to just ignore the boy watching him from the landing and continued sweeping. That didn't last much longer. When the master called there was no ignoring him.

"Hey, you…not-quite-a-butler, my window's open. It's cold, and I can't find Claude. Fix it." Cantebury set down the broom, and followed his master back to his room.

The steward discovered when he entered the room that when Alois had said, "It's cold" what he'd meant was "My room is buried under a foot of snow". The window was open, and the only reasonable explanation for this disaster was that Alois had, once again, gone and slept in a room closer to Claude's and forgotten to close his window. Why he'd opened the window in the first place, Cantebury hadn't the foggiest clue. He didn't have time to focus on that, and instead fixated on the task at hand.

Cantebury decided that the most important thing to be done was to close the window. The first thing he discovered while attempting to close the window was that the snow was, of course, packing snow. This made the process of getting to the window a slight challenge, but nothing that a steward of the Trancy house couldn't overcome. Closing the window wasn't all that bad, but then came the hard part. How does one dispose of a blanket of snow that happens to be inside the house?

That answer was brought to him by his brother, Thompson. He worked out in the slush on a daily basis, and surely knew how to deal with it. Cantebury brought him to the room, and without a word he left to gather supplies. When he returned he had a set of shovels in one hand, a bucket in the other, and Hannah trailing behind him with a wheelbarrow. He handed Cantebury one of the shovels. Alois got the bucket, which he immediately tossed on the ground and walked away from. Hannah claimed the discarded can, and the three went to work.

It took only three wheelbarrows full of snow to get the slush itself out, but that left the sopping wet floors and all of the furniture to be taken care of. At that point, Timber wandered into the mess and got roped into searching for as many towels as he could with Hannah.

They did get the mess cleaned up, but it took almost three hours to get everything dry and the sheets and other such easily changed things cleaned. Claude was never found that day, but he returned the next morning with some excuse or another. He never found out about the snow fiasco, thanks almost entirely to Alois' flitting mind and the triplets' silence.

Notes:

I had a lot of fun writing this, as this is it. I really didn't expect the third part to be done until next winter, and then I was inspired by my own actions. I despise the cold. I can't stand it. I don't retain heat in the first place, and so I know exactly how Alois feels. I just don't take it out on the people around me.

I thank all of you who reviewed from the bottom of my heart, and hope that next time I write the triplets (There WILL be a next time) I'll see you again. I love you all so much, and your reviews and favorites made my day!

~Ali

Disclaimer: none of the characters or places are mine in this piece of writing belong to me, only the situations. I am not Yana.


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